The October that will never be

There's a thread on the Israeli Perl mailing list regarding "What don't you like in Perl". There are the usual answers (Perl thread model is a disaster, Perl OO model does not go well with scotch etc.), but the real answer is only revealed on another thread, where a guy who made the unfortunate mistake of replying personally is getting berated for three or four paragraphs, before is also accused of "Top-posting".

Now, for the record, netiquette was invented by a bunch of nerdy snobs who really wanted something to use when explaining why others are not worthy of their time. The less people obey them, the faster we can get to a point where corporations are willing to listen to what "geeks" have to offer, since every time an "Enterprise" guy is looking in a Perl mailing list, all they see are bunch of petty "you do not follow rule 23 of how I want the world to act".

It's also hard to explain the benefit of the "Unix culture" to anyone who just was told to "RTFM means read the FUCKING manual, FUCKER" on #DBIx-Class. It's even harder when said someone is the owner of the leading Perl/Catalyst company.
OTOH, DHH is also known to be an F-bomb terrorist so maybe it's a prerequisite or something.

Interestingly enough, when that "do not top-post" person was asked to not berate people for top-posting, the next time he simply used the "let me explain what top posting is and why it's bad" idea and berated the person with a long and boring explanation on why top posters suck. I assume for the person who had to read it all, it wasn't pleasant.

Sometimes all you need is to add "is it possible for you to answer at the bottom of a sentence instead of the top? it's difficult for me know what you refer to, and harder for me to help you".

Sadly, I am. I was never told in programming courses that I will have to undergo being called ignorant, a minion, and be sweared at. Sometimes making the mistake of asking something at IRC make me yearn for my days as a .NET programmer, where you had to work with overpaid consultants, but at least they would smile at every stupid question, listen, answer and guide, rather than the abuse in the free communities.

I know, it's sad. I try very hard to avoid some of the more juvenile members of the Perl community but it's not always possible. They're often very smart and thus people are willing to accept behaviour from them that they would not accept from others. When did being smart qualify people to act like jerks?

I have a little theory or two about that. It's all about frustration - the most effective way to get rid of your anger is discharge it on some other human (some people also try banging your fist against a wall - the fact how ridiculous this sounds and still sometimes you'd do that only shows that this redirection mechanism really works). This reaction is deep in human nature - normally it is tempered by culture (where it is - there are theories that culture was an effect of this mechanism) - but online there is the prevailing notion that culture is for lusers. Or rather - the online culture is very fight oriented, very 'Wild West' type of culture - maybe this is because it is a kind of new frontier, or maybe it is because it is so male predominated.

I don't think I'm offended as such berating, but I'm certainly put off by it.
The idea behind netiquette was supposed to be some guidelines to help you be more civil to other people online. Such berating is comes across as very rude and in my mind is often much worse than the "offense" it aims to correct.

Just like Ovid said, it's almost impossible to ignore some of the more juvenile members of the community - people like Ovid, chromatic, lwall, merlyn, etc - if you check it out, the higher the guys are in the perl intelligentsia list, the dicker they are. Merlyn's responses, for instance, are always amazingly dickish... a short trip to perlmonks (is it still running?) will prove it.
By the way, wasn't Perl 6 supposed to be done by this Christmas? Hell, how I wish my deadlines were that movable!

On the other hand, though, newbies asking questions on mailing lists are getting the time and effort of experts donated for free to help them; I don't think expecting them to do basic things to help take as little time as possible is wrong. (If it's an answer which could be quickly found with a quick Google search, say, then there's no need for someone to take the time to write out an answer for you.)

Netiquette such as bottom-posting and quoting the points you're replying to, one at a time, is a convention that leads to readable mails which can be read quickly and still make sense. Top-posting tends to lead to huge threads that don't make much sense unless you scroll down and read back up backwards, which is unpleasant. Top-posting also seems to greatly increase the chance of people responding only to one or two questions raised in a mail, rather than all of them.

I don't think expecting people to make a little effort to help those who would help them for free is the problem, I think it's excessive rudeness when asking them to do so which is the real issue.

"newbies asking questions on mailing lists are getting the time and effort of experts donated for free to help them"

These two arguments are valid, although, I believe, them to be exaggerated. There's a post in the works addressing them, but in a nutshell: 1. The signal-to-noise ration in the relevant channels is not so low that a strict hand is needed; 2. apart from a few hobbyists and enthusiasts, no one is doing this "for free". While active participation in the support channels is voluntary, those who do make their living from developing and supporting Perl and its modules/applications.
I'll expand on this in a post I'll publish next week.

I don't get where this comes from.
Out of these names you mention, I find Ovid and Larry Wall to be quite the opposite of what I mentioned. chromatic's opinionated, but he always maintain an air of respect to the other side in his debates, and, based on my experience, merlyn's current online demeanor is excellent.

I think it's excessive rudeness when asking them to do so which is the real issue.

Call it what it is. "RTFM means read the FUCKING manual, FUCKER" cannot simply get whitewashed as "excessive rudeness". We all know this isn't isolated, either. It's verbal abuse, and no amount of newbie cluelessness excuses it.

This behaviour is gendered: the acts of young male playground bullies who never grew up. It is particularly vile, and a waste, that this behaviour should come from those who actually have something to contribute. Gentlemen, Perl programming isn't a dick-waving contest. Grow up, get over your issues, and acquire a bit of savoir-vivre.